January
by Berlin
Summary: A tempest of one kind sets the scene for another.


_He stands at the open balcony doors and the curtains blow softly against his bare legs._

_Light cast from the lampposts on the street below casts shadows onto the wet road and he watches a phantom hurry down the sidewalk, clutching her coat closed at the neck._

_His hand crushes a fistful of the delicate voile curtains in answer._

_When all he can see is a faint, static memory of her image disappearing into the descending cloudy mist, he swallows hard; almost choking on something intangible and yet so painful, then turns away from the doorway with a muttered curse._

She smiles to the doorman on the way in and lets the eye contact linger intimately. He nods nervously and she smirks a little, shifting her focus to the elevator operator. Both are uniformed in stark monogrammed navy high-collared Mao-style jackets over grey slacks and she appreciates the subtlety. Not like in some hotels where the staff are garbed in stereotypes and she is obliged to don a just-decent ensemble that screams 'maid/slave to whims'.

She tells the operator her floor and slumps a little against the back wall of the ornate metal cage. She inhales deeply and he offers an impersonal smile. She gives him one of her coy, sleepy pouts and his hands tighten around the edge of the doorframe as he opens it for her. She saunters out and directs an inviting smile over her shoulder as she struts down the hall.

Hearing the door close and the elevator continue upwards, she abandons her slightly incapacitated pretence and paces determinedly to the door. She tries the knob first and is not surprised when it doesn't even jiggle. Kicking up a heel, she twists the wedge of sole and it slides away. She withdraws the picks and restores the sole so that she can put her foot back down.

Slipping the pick into the keyhole, she is relieved that the hotel chooses the old-fashioned option of locks rather than something impressively modern and annoyingly difficult to get around. Exhaling as the telltale "snick" announces that the door is unlocked, she glances quickly to the left and right and shuts herself into the room.

_She fights the stiff breeze to keep her coat closed and the frigid wind out, noting that the cold makes her more aware of her physical self than heat. She can see her breath and consciously 'feel' her skin._

_She doesn't notice a crack in the sidewalk and her stumble lets her feel the not-unpleasant ache in her centre; a memory of moistness. Tears well and she scrunches her eyes and kills the thoughts that seep into mind._

_She puts tonight behind her; appreciating the growing distance between herself and her mistake, and focuses on holding herself together and getting away from him and the temptation he poses._

He hears the "snick" in the darkness. Sleep has not come and right now he is glad. Drawing himself into sitting position slowly, his breath catches involuntarily when the light from the hall silhouettes the intruder. His hand slips under the pillow and closes around his gun. Watching the figure glide through the shadows, his free hand steals toward the bedside table.

He throws the switch and the room is drenched with lamplight. He watches her eyes widen, narrow and adjust to the light.

He asks her if she's come to join the side of evil, unable to resist the urge to rile his uninvited guest. They are old acquaintances and he falls into his usual pattern of behaviour.

She drawls a reply to the negative, rolling her eyes, and makes a remark about the ranks being rather crowded as it is.

He chuckles.

She then asks where his partner is.

He ignores the momentary discomfort of sympathetic alarm slithering down his spine and into his limbs, knowing that she cannot know just who his partner is and deciding not to enlighten her; preferring to let his visitor remain smug in her ignorance.

He tells her that his associate is next door, inclining his head in the direction of the room where his cohort slumbers.

The intruder's eyes briefly fix on the wall he shares with his colleague and then return to him.

They stare at each other for a long moment and then he shakes off the peculiar emotion that threatens his concentration. Gets himself back into 'work' mode.

He breaks the tense silence with a flippant comment, and slowly brings the gun into view. He takes aim as he slides from the bed, but his arm twitches when he hears her gasp. She has noticed his nakedness and he preeningly stretches a little for her benefit.

There is a heavy, eternity-long silence and it is fraught. He begins to get hard, much to his shame, and her silence makes him nervous. With her eyes fixed on his growing tumescence, she licks her lips without looking at him and he is seared from the inside out.

He asks her why she's there, hearing the growl in his voice and a sense of desperation in his words.

She says she's come for the location of the plasma charge, not looking up.

He swallows urgently and forces a bark of laughter.

He asks if she thinks he's going to just give it to her with an incredulity he doesn't feel. His heart is pounding furiously and her unwavering stare directed at his erection makes it hard to concentrate.

She says no, and her eyes finally meet his.

He asks her what she has in mind then, straining to hide his anxiety and maintain as much of his façade of nonchalance as he can. They both know and could possibly not forget that he is heavily aroused; the evidence, as it is, is undeniably obvious.

She says she's been authorized to make him an offer.

His interest is only slightly piqued, engaged as he is with keeping himself in check. He holds his tongue and lets her proceed.

She continues, saying that if he gives her an opportunity to take his colleague into custody, lips twisting mordantly on the word 'colleague', adding that if he submits to questioning himself-

He chimes in, interrupting to mention the plasma charge and her wanting its location, amused at the predictably high-handed nature of her offer.

She nods, agreeing with his intercession.

He interjects again, saying he can guess the next part, feeling his lips settle into a smirk. He conjectures then, making use of a dramatic aposiopesis, that if he gives and does all she proposes, that she'll have him taken into CIA custody for an intensive 'questioning' session and then shipped off to Camp Harris to endure what fun and games are deemed necessary to make him divulge the information he will surely refuse to share.

She nods in concurrence, affecting a sugary smile, adding that she was also going to put forward the promise that she will do her best to ensure that his nose remains unbroken. She notes sarcastically that he seems to dislike that.

He lets himself chuckle at the show of ironic humour from his nemesis.

She asks for his answer, her tone warning.

He returns that while her offer isn't more than generous, he thinks he'll pass, and makes his move while she is lulled in a sense of false complacency and he has the element of surprise.

He has her facedown on the floor and firmly restrained in a moment. She struggles and he presses his knee harder into the base of her spine. The thrashing subsides and he decreases his force a little, easing himself atop her.

She gasps that he knows as well as she does that she'll leave with what she came for, and squirms under his weight.

Bearing down on her again, he leans in towards her ear and exposed throat and grapples with his desire and the urge that buffets him to kiss the faintly fragrant flesh. As it is, he is tenuously clinging to the knowledge that her wholly sensuous writhing is of protest and resistance, not lustful invitation.

He hears himself disagree and breathes the heady scent of her in.

She offers her personal assurance that he won't, at any time, be moved to Camp Harris as a sweetener, her voice muffled by the curtain of hair that falls across her face, but her tone is palpably desperate.

Without thinking, he releases one of her hands to let his fingers tangle in her hair and brush away the chocolate silk strands obscuring her face, and she seizes the upper hand from him in a deft motion. She settles herself astride him and cages his hands above his head tightly.

He looks up at her, lost in her eyes, and any thought in his mind; any notion that he should unseat her and fight her for his freedom crumbles into dust.

_Standing under a torrent of bitingly hot water, he tries to wash the memories away unsuccessfully. He can still feel her skin against his; her back pressed to his chest as he bucks into her and she wantonly rides the motions and his hardness, her beaded nipples rubbing his stomach as she trails erotic bites down his chest and tongues his own sensitised aureoles and the silky, firm flesh of her inner thighs locked around his waist as he thrusts, on the verge._

_Tormented, he tries to convince himself he's caught up in fantasy or deluded or mad to no avail._

_When he stands, clothed only in the cooling steam, in front of the partially fogged mirror, he traces a love bite to the right of his belly button with a slow fingertip and meets his own reflected scowl._

_Before his eyes, though, the facial muscles tensed in some nameless distortion of anger slacken and he watches the emergence of manifested despair._

With a clench of her moistening internal muscles, she stares down at him and her head swims with sensations and half-thought of protests and encouragements.

She absently wrenches the bunched bottom of her coat out from under her and unconsciously settles back down directly atop his insistent hardness. He bucks, involuntarily she can feel, and gasps, biting his lip. She has to swallow at the sight and finds herself transfixed at the prospect of pearly white teeth digging into that soft, plump and slightly crooked flesh.

As she watches, one of her hands slips unbidden from her thigh to settle over his pounding heart. He looks down at it, forehead wrinkling in apparent confusion, and then back up at her.

The display made by those furrows and his lower lip held in check by his teeth is too much.

She lets out a panting exhalation and leans down to taste him, trapping his hands above his head when they move towards her. Ruthlessly, she roughly pushes her tongue into his mouth and feels a surge of feminine power when he hungrily accepts it and strains upwards for more. She learns the bumps of his palate, the line of his upper teeth and how his tongue wants to be caressed with smooth sliding movements, conceding no ground when he tries to free his hands or gain entry into her own mouth with his tongue.

Instead, she takes him just as she admits to herself now that she always wanted to and shivers at his passionate submission to her.

When she shifts to bite his ear lobe, her knees protest at the hardness of the floor and the abrasive carpet. Edging back, she look down at him as she catches her breath, noting how brutally dark his eyes are with arousal and how bruised his lips are from her passionate attention. His expression on the whole is protesting and she borrows his smirk to use on him.

She dismounts and stands, towering over him.

His brow furrows and she indicates that she wants him on the bed with a negligent toss of her head in the bed's direction.

He scrambles up adorably and throws himself backwards on the vast rumpled expanse. Toeing off her heels and retaining the smirk, she advances upon him, tugging the belt free from her coat and dropping it on the floor.

It takes him a second before he guesses her intention and she sees the understanding dawn on his face. He brings his wrists together above his head with a smile that aims to be innocent, but is distinctly predatory.

Wrapping the belt around twice, she then ties the ends to the wooden lattice bed head, allowing a little give. Satisfied with the knot she makes, she lets her fingers trail down the straining bulges of his upper arms and down to his shoulders.

Leaning down, she rewards his obedience with a quick kiss on the lips, but doesn't linger or deepen it. He makes a sound of complaint and follows when she pulls away, so she gives his lower lip a brief nibble and sits back, smiling.

When he frowns up at her, she shakes her head at him teasingly while she quirks an eyebrow quickly and reaches behind her for the zip of her dress. Immediately, the frown subsides and is replaced with an eager, hungry look that earns his mouth another quick bite.

She then slowly slips the thick straps of the dress off her shoulder until her torso is bared and she has only to push the dress down her waist and step out of it to be free of it. She holds his gaze the entire time, revelling in the palpable desire she sees and letting it embolden her further.

She hooks her index fingers and thumbs around the waistband of her underwear then and slowly drags it down, shimmying somewhat for his benefit to pull it over the swell of her derrière. She steps out of them and tosses the bunched ball negligently away, sliding back astride him.

Looking down at him, she is confronted with all of the delicious possibilities. She eases off his hardness with a slow dragging motion and he makes a sound of near agony, bucking. She trails her lips down the sides of his jaw and his neck, suddenly catching the flesh with her teeth and sucking. Her gratification comes audibly and so she repeats the action all down his neck and torso, lingering around his abdomen and increasing the force of her bite. When he is pushing up against her with his groin, she moves back up his chest and touches her tongue to his nipples, swirling it around the small circle.

Abruptly, she finds herself beneath him, with his somehow-freed hands forcefully gripping her shoulders to hold her still. He grunts something about playtime being over, widens the space between her thighs and plunges inside her, drawing a low, long moan from her agape mouth.

_She reaches the haven of the safe house and runs straight past the man waiting for her. She yells over her shoulder that she didn't get the answer she wanted and locks herself into the first bedroom she passes, sinking down against the cold face of the closed door and pressing her heated cheeks against the frigid wood._

_Ignoring the knocking at the door, she gives over to the tears that won't be suppressed any longer and they slide down her cheeks silently, while she balls her fists against her mouth to mute any sobs_

_Crawling away from the door, she makes her way to the ensuite and has to hold onto the vanity to get to her feet again. Her face in the mirror is red and her eyes are puffy and squinty, while her lips are still bruised a tell-tale red._

_She turns away from her reflection quickly, unable to face herself any longer. Casting off her rumpled clothes, she steps under a hot shower before the brisk air can touch her._

_The night had all been a huge mistake and her behaviour just now would be hard to explain and impossible to justify._

_And while she could reason with herself that she hadn't necessarily lost anything they'd had already with her foolish lapse, she was all too aware of the personal cost to herself and her equilibrium._

_And to her dawning horror, she realises now that her reputation is at stake if her mistake chooses to tell anyone what she's done._

_What they'd done._

_And what she couldn't take back_

Sheathed to the hilt inside her, he fights desperately to catch his breath and trap it inside his heaving lungs.

Beneath him, she's squirming and clenching around him, making breathing nigh on impossible and dragging him to his point far sooner than is fair.

He pulls back a little out of self-preservation, but has to grit his teeth when certain muscles seek to keep hold of him and her hands steal urgently up his arms to grasp his biceps. Her knees slide up his sides and lock around him tightly, tilting her hips and taking him back deeper into her.

Sweat wells in the small of his back and he tastes blood where he's bitten through his lip. He feels his erection throbbing and eases back shakily to thrust in further and with jarring force.

She gasps a plea and he is lost. He gives over to the ancient rhythm of hearts beating, blood pounding through veins and bodies meeting in frenzied passion, already light-headed from the intensity of feeling.

His efforts soon have them both panting and her response makes him shiver, though he feels as if he is consumed by fire.

Within moments, they're on the precipice. Eyes locked, he stills and swallows hard at the protesting moan and needy clench she issues and his hand steals towards where they are joined.

He inches out and his fingers meander slowly up her hipbone and trace the edge of the neat triangle of curls that shelter her femininity. Hands closing over the silky skin covered ridges of bone, he at once grips tightly and lunges forward, shuddering at his own impetus.

Her climax hits him like a barrelling wave hits the shore and he is cast adrift in his own fulfilment, hearing his grunts as if from under water.

Sapped of energy- spent- his elbows give way and he collapses atop her.

She gives him only minutes to recover before she forces him onto his back and begins her assault anew.

She takes him leisurely and bound by the mental shackles of her domination, he lets her. She is demanding, selfish, and the sense of helplessness and the blunt honesty of their mutual lust thrills him to his core.

Later, he seizes the reins and takes her, relinquishing a measure of the control for the view of her lithe body impelled by pleasure he discovers from over her shoulders and for the heady rush he gets when she grips his thighs tightly, throws back her head and rubs her back sinuously against his tension-taut stomach while he forces himself into her willingness.

Eventually, they are both utterly sated and he is about to slide off her to settle at her side in the sweat-dampened sheets when she shoves him away and leaps off the bed with surprising agility for someone who has just undergone such strenuous exertions.

A pitch-dark and leaden ball of solid, heavy dread drops into his stomach as he watches her drag on her clothing and he senses that any words he utters could likely earn him a decent amount of pain.

So he heaps the pillows behind his back with deliberate arrogance and forces himself to recline against them, ignoring the pained spasms of his stomach muscles as the tension in his body increases.

He watches her frantic dressing and drops his head back into the cradle of his arms so that she can't see that his hands are wracked with tremors.

Soon, she turns to him, fully dressed, and the awful feeling in his stomach abates a little in hope.

She opens her mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a sob she chokes back on.

With the graceful economy of movement that she is known for, she turns and flees, leaving him alone again, but volatile after their encounter.

He slips out of bed and pads across the itching carpet floor.

_Shaking, he stands at the open balcony doors and the curtains blow softly against his bare legs._

_Light cast from the lampposts on the street below casts shadows onto the wet road and he watches a phantom hurry down the sidewalk and away from him, from every promise her body just made him and from every secret they created together and will both be obliged to keep and forget._

_When all he can see is a faint, static memory of her image disappearing into the descending cloudy mist, he swallows hard; almost choking on something intangible and yet so painful, then turns away from the doorway with a muttered curse._


End file.
